Originally Posted by
deniah
Fuddruckers is priced slightly higher than fast-fast-food places and is in a sort of small niche with johnny rockets, red robin, and maybe something like becks prime which is a local chain. fuddruckers is the best of this lot
I much prefer both the burgers and the dining experience at Johnny Rockets to the one at Fuddruckers, at least comparing their Bay Area locations.
Red Robin is a good chunk pricier than either, and is much more a casual sit-down place that happens to focus on burgers than a "burger joint" per se - I'd imagine they see their competition more as Chilis or Applebees, given their pricing and rather broader non-burger menu (even with the heavy burger focus.)
as with most foods the best belong to independent local restaurants, either cheap "dive" bars or shacks or in fancier "gourmet" places (10-15-20$ burgers). for instance in austin texas one could list casino el camino, burgertex, fran/dan, huts, hyde park.
Yup. And good local burger places are among the easiest things to find in most parts of the US that I've lived. For those on the peninsula south of San Francisco, Jersey Joe's (primarily a cheesteak place) in San Carlos and Jeffrey's in San Mateo both have very good burgers at reasonable prices.
For that matter, the central coast town which my wife is originally from is an absolute culinary wasteland - they don't even manage a good sit-down Mexican restaurant as far as I've found - but even THEY'VE got two good burger places, and a couple of good taco shops.